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Monday, August 18, 2014

On my long absence from blogging

It's been a while since I wrote something here. A while since I used this space to articulate the many things on my mind. I've been meaning to for a very long time now, but, I've intentionally stayed away.

For starters, I got married in December 2012. After years of bitching and ranting about it on this blog and to my friends and on Facebook and Twitter, I finally got married. My husband is an army officer. And it means the same everywhere, really. Long absences, coping with a lifestyle that can be overly overwhelming, coping with a routine that's sometimes truly and amazingly nuts, and living in houses that make you go "WTF were they thinking when they built/painted/furnished it". See, in the Indian Army, you accessorise your homes, you don't, for the most part, sit on the sofas you bought so lovingly.

Anyway, I digress.

Since December 2012, I've been dealing with a lot, personally. One major thing being cohabiting with a man I met on a matrimonial website. Despite all the time we spent talking and getting to know each other, and hashing out what we identified as potential problems, and fighting over the negotiable and non-negotiable aspects of our relationship and the things we wanted, he was still a stranger who I had no real understanding of.

On some days, I felt like I was living in an alternate reality and this wasn't really my actual life. Those were the days when we fought. The rest of the time I kept thinking how familiar it was being with him and laughing at ridiculous slapstick Hindi comedy shows and being amazed at how similar our values were and how similar our sense of right and wrong was. It still didn't take away the blind panic I sometimes felt at this new relationship and this new loneliness I felt, being so far away from home and from the people I'd known all my life.

I've stopped working since I got married. A number of reasons for that - the army doesn't ask you to live at places where newspapers have active editions, I don't stay in a place for longer than two years (three years max), the kind of work I want to do is not easily available in places that are, for instance, 70kms away from a major city/town. I've dabbled with freelance work, but I'm shitty at following up or setting a routine for myself (as is evidenced by the lack of a published book but a folder full of half-written stories). For the most part, I decided that a work sabbatical was needed since I had so much coping to do. Classic escapism, but I think that it has been a good investment of my time. Now, I know that I'm ready to re-join the work force and not feel guilty about a damn thing.

Going from being the girl who lived with all her friends and family so close by and being able to travel any time to meet them and spend time with them to being the girl who lived in a remote army cantonment and managing with the resources available to me, has been immensely difficult. My husband tries to be understanding and supportive, but I think the only person who is capable of understanding what you're going through is you.

They say the first year of marriage is the worst. I don't know if this is a universal -ism or an -ism specificaly catering to an arranged marriage, but the first year was difficult and honestly the fact that my relationship survived it is thanks to timely interventions from friends and family. If it weren't for my friend Anjana, I honestly don't think I would have had the courage to examine what was going on and pull myself out of the blackhole I had summoned from nowhere!

What does all of this have to do with my blog?

Well, everything.

Blogging about my newly wedded 'bliss' would have been violating my husband's privacy, and as much as I love to talk about my life and everyone and everything in it, talking about my husband is something I don't think I should do. I don't mind harping incessantly about my feelings and so on, and any inferences made are really the reader's prerogative, but I will not under any circumstances initiate anything!

So, I've been on a leave of absence because blogging regularly would have meant giving in to the temptation of discussing my husband and I didn't want to do that. For any reason.

It's been 20 months since I've been married and I'm slowly getting better at dealing with things, and since I'm thinking of getting back to working, it's as good a time as any to get back to routine blogging as well.

Here's to more nonsensical observations about life and everything else in general.